I don’t really have anything school related to write about, so I’m just going to write about something that’s been bugging me lately.  Most of the women in my family are pretty thin, my grandma, aunt and mom have all done their fair share of modeling, and all have pretty good bodies.  My sister and I, though are naturally curvy and have meat on our bones. It’s not that either of us is unhealthy, we are just naturally not as thin. I’ve had my fair share of body struggles and for the most part I’ve moved past them. My sister however, is 12 and very susceptible to the comments and opinions of others about her appearance.  You’d think most of this criticism would come from others, but lately I’ve noticed a lot of snarky comments coming from my family themselves.  The other day my grandmother made a snarky comment about my sister and I making rice, remarking on how many carbs were in it, while she was eating a burrito with rice and refried beans. It came off to me like she was telling us to watch our figures and basically not eat, but it was okay for her to indulge because she’s naturally skinny. I can move past these things for the most part, but I know they hurt her and it hurts me to see her self-esteem lowered by members of our own family. I won’t go into detail, but this happens regularly from my mom and aunt as well, and she’s admitted to me multiple times that she’s gone without eating at home to avoid comments from them.

Family is supposed to be your support system, to make you feel good about yourself, but instead my family tears their children down over something they cannot change. I’ll admit, I’m not always super nice, but making negative remarks about someone’s weight, physical appearance or how much they do or don’t eat can be damaging and scarring, and it is not okay. 

Conservapedia = LOL

Recently in my graphic design class, Trevor told me to look up this website: Conservapedia. The name really says it all. It’s a wiki page for extreme Conservatives and the content is just as infuriating as it is funny. As I was looking through the articles, one in particular caught my eye, Feminism.  There was a list of things on the feminist agenda, including “shirking traditional gender activities, like baking” and “condemning the God-given order of gender roles”. Following this list, was one quote that mildly disturbed me, but also made me laugh hysterically:

“The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians.”

The complete and total ignorance in this article and website in general is the exact reason that we need feminism. The ignorant authors of this article are obviously under the influence that feminists are cruel devil worshipping women with an evil agenda rather than rationally thinking women who want to be seen as equals. The implication that baking and raising children are “traditional gender activities” is totally ridiculous and almost prehistoric.

There were many other statements in this article that were either way out of context, or just entirely made up. The radical conservative writers and contributors act as if the burning of bras is like the burning of books and buildings: detrimental to society as a whole. It’s extremely obvious by this whole wiki site that conservatives are not at all interested in a progressive society, but instead want to set the time clock back a few hundred years so women remain silent and in servitude of a patriarchal society.